We've got it all right here, folks! Everything that's ever been written up, photographed, and discussed on the Sad Mag website. Enjoy browsing our archives!
The 1982 World Fair’s commemorative PEZ dispenser is known in PEZ circles as the most rare and sought after plastic-head-driven candy dispenser of all time. On top of a green stem (that holds the unremarkable sugary tablets), this Austrian based company stuck an assumedly American astronaut’s helmet—a proxy for the USA’s power and ingenuity—up on a threateningly diabetic pike. Was this a bold political statement or my boredom causing me to connect dots that weren’t there, like my brother’s freckles during winter?
If it’s boredom it’s because I just don’t get PEZ. I mean, I understand the appeal of candy and the fetish of collecting meaningless cultural ephemera, but none of the PEZ characters ever spoke to me. Popeye? Batman? The cast of Disney’s Frozen? Yawn. You want my money? Give me Donald Trump. Make the freshly euthanized Pomeranian on his head tilt back to offer up what you expected be an artificially flavoured grape rectangle that for some reason tastes like cherry. Why? Because that’s the art of the deal, yah loser, that’s why.
I want to tip Putin’s stoic Russian chin and die of dioxin poisoning two days later. I want a self-tanned, weave-wearing Rachel Dolezal gullet to shoot out peppermint PEZ and a dispenser hooded in a niq?b that you lift to reveal a simpering Stephen Harper—because if you’re going to turn our sweets into entertainment, at least make it something that we’re entertained by—the loud, dangerous, and offensive.
High School, our 20th issue, is on the way! To celebrate, we’re publishing a series of poetry and illustration that celebrate those teenage times for what they were–glorious, hopeless, funny, moving, or just plain embarrassing.
Illustration by Amelia Garvin
KATHY ACKER RIDES THE BUS
By Nathaniel G. Moore
To her, every road wasn’t made of material itself,
but animalistic memory and sensory sent out
the way bats see, bouncing infrared animation depicting
what we can’t see or the way beacons, other worlds contact us.
It’s as if we are riding over people’s dreams, dog’s dreams, made
of ancestral bones made of skin clouds made of a million soup craving,
bank robbing sister’s shameful tears
I didn’t create language, Kathy thought. Later she
would think about her mother and father and the people she loved.
Now she wants to tell us teenaged or otherwise that the world is a complicated
place and that you can put ribbons on everything but it doesn’t
change the fact
That beauty isn’t something you can pluck from a grocery hearse and everyone
is different and feels fucked up for no reason but there is always a fucking reason.
Nathaniel G. Moore is the author of Savage 1986-2011(Anvil Press), winner of the 2014 ReLit Award for best novel. His next book, Jettison, is a collection of romantic horror stories. It will launch in Vancouver in May 2016 along with an art show of the same name. A life-long Torontonian, Moore now calls Pender Harbour, where he has a PR job in the book creation industry, home.
Amelia Garvin is a painter and illustrator who has exhibited her work in group shows across Vancouver. She has a BFA from Emily Carr. See more work by Amelia here and here.
Look out for High School Poetry on Tuesdays on sadmag.ca.
I sat down with local artist Pax North on a very chilly November evening. Before meeting, I had taken a peek at the collection of paintings displayed on his website titled “Art for the Human Condition”. The abstract portraits, painted on both canvas and cardstock, were intensely immersive, and I came to the interview eager to know more about how they came to be. North’s show (curated by Shallom Johnson) opens on Tuesday, November 10th, at Skylight Gallery. After our conversation, I am convinced it will be a rare artistic experience.
What initially drew you to the practice of painting?
Wonder. Awe. I can remember as a child in preschool, discovering the whole idea of colour in the form of either yellow or green tempura paints using vegetable prints (you know, where you cut up apples or vegetables for kids and dip them in paint and then press them onto paper). It seemed so astonishing that there could be ‘pure’ colour, divorced from an object other than the colour itself, and that one could use this to create.
Over the years I have practiced in many mediums, but painting seems to bring the most joy to people and to help them feel less alone. I try to show the vast cinema which plays across the human face, to collapse and conflate moments in life. We do this all the time, both via media imagery, which map for us an idea of what a person is supposed to be like based on their appearance, and in relationships when we commune with others.
There is also a longevity factor. We live in both a golden age and a nightmare. There are a million acts of kindness, courage, sacrifice, and horror that will be unrecorded; as Roy Batty, in Bladerunner, states, they “will be lost like tears in the rain.” I am aiming to give some record of this period in human history. A painting might be a document of such kind.
And so do you feel that painting is the best medium through which to express the spectrum of human emotion and connectivity?
Actually, I feel that crown goes to music, and to television. Right now, television is at a cultural peak: Breaking Bad, The Wire, The Sopranos, Better Call Saul, Enlightened (a highly underrated show), The Comeback (also highly underrated), and Deadwood. Even Vancouver’s own Battlestar Galactica—they really are great art.
I often use screen grabs from TV and movies as models or inspiration. I also obsessively study people’s faces, both strangers and friends. I’m sure I’ve creeped a few people out, but each human face is such a testament to some kind of profound struggle. Wendy Mass said it best: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.”
I get a very mixed media or collage effect from your work. Do those elements factor in organically during the painting process?
I’ve always had this desire to have a formulaic approach to my process, but it is idiosyncratic. [My process] is purely based on what my piece demands.
I find that interesting, considering your work is consistent not only in theme but in presentation. I see your specific painting style in all of the works.
I have wanted to make a coherent body of work for a long time. That’s why I’ve taken so long to start showing the work, because I wanted a coherent style.
Who inspires you?
The whole canon of modernism and postmodernism. It’s an endless catalogue.
You mention in your artist statement that you use several cartography techniques in your work. Can you elaborate on that?
Well, I’ve done an amateur study of cartography and cartographic theory. I think that [cartography] is a very significant, cognitive, rather analytical tool that we employ while viewing the world. That fascinates me, how you have this very specialized knowledge, so much of which is cartographic or diagrammatic in nature. I also tend to think cartographically, imagining people moving through the city; I find it to be a very powerful technique for visualizing the world.
I also see references to photography, specifically time-lapse photography, in your work. Is that an influence at all?
Totally. I do think about that idea a lot, a time-lapse. Who is this person, over time and space? You walk down the street and you see so much drama on people’s faces. There’s this whole film, a micro-drama, based on all of these expressions. And it shifts so rapidly.
How does abstraction manifest in your process?
Well of course, you know, modernism. You’re competing so often against a camera for visual mimesis, and the camera wins every time, right? Jack Shadbolt had a quote about how you need to let the viewer ‘fill in’ parts of a work. At times I try and stretch it. How far can I abstract while still [portraying] a ‘face’, and one that conveys some feeling or meaning?
Do you see your works as a continuing series, or simply a collection of works functioning under one thematic umbrella?
I’m going to say both. There isn’t necessarily a defined series. I’d like to start to do more of that. But right now I would say they are more a collection of idiosyncratic works in a family. [They] riff off of each other, or are influenced by each other.
Would you consider your paintings to be optimistic about the human condition? Pessimistic? Indifferent and observational?
Fundamentally, for me, they’re optimistic. I think that no matter how dark things get, there is this light that shines, that never goes out. You don’t necessarily have to be theistic to have this view. You see it in people, in the million acts of courage that occur everyday. So maybe I’m depicting what could be seen as a dark aesthetic, but within myself, I have an optimism.
What do you find most interesting about your own work?
Well, this exhibition will only present one part of my practice. I mean, I am kind of a cliché, an artist who has been working on their practice for about twenty years in relative seclusion. Painting is a serious thing. You’re dealing with a conversation that has been going on for at least fifty thousand years. So, I wanted to take my time before I started promoting it in any kind of serious fashion. I wanted to be on solid ground. Certainly I want “success,” but for me it has always been more important to find success in making work that I feel might still be relevant two hundred years from now–wherever people are in two hundred years.
We are excited to present this show in collaboration with Hayo Magazine. Origin Stories: A Solo Exhibition by Pax North opens Tuesday, November 10th, at Skylight Gallery. Read more about it here and RSVP here.
On the overcast afternoon of October 31, I met about ten other curious people at Access Gallery for artist Alana Bartol’s Water Witching Workshop. What better way, I thought, to celebrate All Hallow’s Eve than by learning some practical magic?
Bartol’s artistic practice involves, among many other things, dowsing for water. She discovered that the women in her family were known for their ability to find groundwater, and had been helping people find well sites for generations. Curious about her own abilities, Bartol began going on “dowsing walks” and incorporating dowsing into her art as a creative method for connecting to nature and the non-human world.
Dowsing traditionally involves the use of a Y shaped rod, made from a found willow branch, or two L shaped rods, usually made from copper. These days, dowsing rods of both shapes can be made from any material, from the bespoke ceramic Y rods Bartol makes herself, to the L rods made from wire hangers that we were given for the workshop.
The premise is simple, though as I learned, the practice is difficult. One holds their wand of choice lightly in their hands and asks it yes or no questions; the wand will respond with subtle movements directing the “water witch” towards water (or, as Bartol, informed us, toward anything one might be looking for). The L rods’ movements are more obvious, while the Y rod’s answers are much more elusive. Craving the challenge, I chose a spindly willow Y rod and headed down the street to Crab Park with the others.
We walked though Saturday shoppers, garnering strange looks as we held our dowsing tools in front of us unselfconsciously. When we reached Carb Park, we walked down the grassy slope to the beach, my willow branch bouncing wildly. In my skepticism I giggled and disregarded the branch’s warning. Then my foot sunk half an inch into the ground and I found myself hopping through the hidden marshland trying to stop the water from seeping into my leaky boots. Once we reached the beach, Bartol let us loose to explore using our rods. She suggested we ask the rods “Is there something on this beach I need to find?” and let them guide us freely from there.
It’s nearly impossible to be still enough for the rod to move completely on its own: even the slightest slip of my fingers caused the thing to quiver. That’s when I realized that there was no separating the magic from my body; if divination was going to happen, my body would be the conduit. The exercise grounded me, allowing me to notice things I probably would not have if I was taking a walk in the park on any other day. And so the rod became a kind of conductor, a radio tower between myself and the earth, which helped me dial in to the frequency of my surroundings.
Dowsing is extremely meditative. It made my thoughts less erratic and forced me to focus on being present with my own body. I had to pay attention to the way my legs reacted to the changing grade of the ground, on how I was holding my hands out in front of me despite sore elbows and finger joints, numb from the air’s damp chill. I found my way around the park with my whole body and not just my eyes.
Our dowsing revealed things that had been purposefully hidden, or that typically go unnoticed. Among the things I found were a shotgun shell and a shrine covered in flowers and dream catchers. One participant had asked her rods to help her find a stone with a white ring around it and a stone with black and white speckles. She opened her palm and showed us both stones. Another had found a drainage pipe, and someone else had discovered a tree full of fruit that she had never seen before.
We joked about taking a pair of glow sticks and dowsing for a Halloween party that night. But according to Bartol, we had all already been dowsing for those things: we can think of our phones as wands, too, that guide us through the dark streets towards places, events, things we need to find, and even each other. Really, we are witching all the time, it’s only a matter of becoming aware of it. And that was the most powerful part of the workshop: the feeling that the magic is already there if you take the time to practise it.
High School, our 20th issue, is on the way! To celebrate, we’re publishing a series of poetry and illustration that celebrate those teenage times for what they were–glorious, hopeless, funny, moving, or just plain embarrassing.
How Art Would Save Us by Amelia Garvin
REMEMBER HOW WE FELT ABOUT ART AT SIXTEEN
By Esther McPhee
Ten years out of high school, I watch six seasons
of Glee in three months. It’s embarrassing to admit this
but when they burst into song I got that shining
feeling again. You know, that cocktail of conviction
and desperation that insists something inside of you
is important enough to become a poem.
If graduation was when I wedded myself to real life
(rent, grocery bills, the kind of heartbreak that makes you sober
and cautious), then I’m on my tin anniversary,
year of brittle metal. I remember high school pretty well
and I’m sure it was neither as cruel nor as gay as it is on TV.
I’m sure I spent whole semesters dreaming of a kiss
that would shock my fist open the way Kurt’s hand uncurls
when Blaine falls onto his mouth that first time, like water finally
after a long thirst. I cried after that scene the way I cried
when I found out a senior had killed himself
over spring break. I knew he was gay even though
I’d only talked to him twice in the hallway. We all knew
he was perfect. In a building made of pretending
no one else existed, he met your eyes
whenever he walked past. There was no song
for how immediately he disappeared. Just static.
Everything is pain and magic when your dreams
are as big as stadiums. Once in a while I want to remember
how completely I believed art could save anything
—anyone—when I was sixteen.
Esther McPhee is a genderqueer writer, magic-maker and organizer who lives in a cozy collective house and reads a lot of kids books. They hold an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC and co-organize a queer reading series called REVERB. Find out more about Esther here. “REMEMBER HOW WE FELT ABOUT ART AT SIXTEEN” will also appear in SAD Mag‘s upcoming issue: High School.
Amelia Garvin is a painter and illustrator who has exhibited her work in group shows across Vancouver. She has a BFA from Emily Carr. See more work by Amelia here and here.
Look out for High School Poetry on Tuesdays on sadmag.ca.
Due to a design error, the version of this poem that appears in SAD‘s print issue is centered rather than flush left as the poet intended. To Esther McPhee, to the poetry community, to our dear readers, we extend an embarrassed, heartfelt, left-aligned apology.
Matt Muldoon is the owner of Knuckles Industries: a rapidly ascending design company that just released (to much publicity) their new 60/61 furniture series.
Based on vintage Americana and old-school airplanes – the pieces were built with 6061 aircraft grade aluminum – the collection marries craftsmanship and not-quite-functionalism. Does a shoe rack really require speed holes? Of course not, but then, it doesn’t not need them.
Things are going well so far at Knuckles Industries: the 60/61 series was recently featured at Vancouver’s IDS West show, and has been lauded in publications from The Globe and Mail to Montecristo Magazine.
But back to Matt – what kind of person is it that comes up with this stuff?
A Total Hick
Matt was born in Nanton, Alberta, and describes himself as a hillbilly. He grew up going to scrap yards and buying materials on the Bargain Finder, and at fourteen, he built his first piece: a go-kart repurposed from a smashed-up motorcycle.
As an adult, Matt divides his time between Alberta and B.C., and runs his business a bit like a farmer coming to market. He works mostly out of his shop in Calgary, but wheels and deals in Vancouver. While on the west coast, he lives in an enviable loft space on Main and 2nd, but still misses Alberta’s Wild West vibes.
“The part that was hard for me in Vancouver was it sort of separated me from being a hillbilly,” he says.
“It’s a very different scene in Vancouver. Even if I could build a go-kart out of a motorcycle in Van, someone’s going to arrest me if I drive it down 2nd the way that I drive it at home.”
A Serial Killer
Not really, of course. But Matt admits that he looks like one – a little bit – when he’s staying up all night in his shop, alternately listening to classical music and Nine Inch Nails.
“I just fall back to Trent Reznor at eleven or twelve o’clock at night,” he says.
And then there’s his love of machining and clean lines.
“I prefer that surgical look.”
An Awesome Boyfriend
Recently, Matt’s girlfriend needed a new countertop. So Matt built her one, out of some 90-year-old barn wood that was presumably lying around her apartment.
I think there was very little planning that went into it,” he says.
Sounds like a fun date!
A Real Straight Shooter
More than anything else, Matt deals in authenticity. He describes himself as a half-designer, half-fabricator, and is capable of building any piece that he comes up with. He takes pride in his work; loves quality, well-built materials; and believes in completing a project in its entirety.
“I have an obsession with the 1930s and the 1940s, and everything that was made then. Sort of that Americana manufacturing days, when people went to work and made what they did and they were proud of it, and it turned out really well,” he says.
“I have this thing with the work pride of days gone by.”
Wade Comer presents “Time Passages”, a continuing series of long-exposure photos split into two series: “Mountains” and “Cities”. Taken from the decks of passenger ferries in motion as they pass along their routes, Comer essentially paints with the camera. “Mountains” is a series compiled from over two years of travelling aboard the various BC Ferries; contrastingly, “Cities” is a series that includes images from Istanbul, New York, Toronto, and Vancouver. I caught up with Comer to discuss his photographic practise and how he was able to express the emotive quality in his works.
Cities by Wade Comer
How did you get involved with photography?
Finding my ‘definitive’ creative outlet was a long process, and one that I don’t think I was actually looking for until my early twenties. I went to broadcasting school, and had been an announcer, copywriter, and producer at a radio station called ‘Coast 1040’ from 1990 to 1993. I spent a lot of that time working with music, making huge tape loop experiments in the production suite after hours. Somewhere in there, I realised that my preferred way of expressing myself was via photography. I never considered myself a musician – even though I spent a decade in the music industry – but from that point of recognition onward, I have always considered myself a photographer. I owe a debt of gratitude to an old friend, Steve, who upon hearing about my desire to take up photography, loaned me his dad’s Nikon ‘F’ until I could buy my own camera. Soon afterward, I purchased a Canon ‘Ftb’, and then taught myself how to process my own film, and within a couple of months I was off trying to get a gig as a photographer’s assistant. I managed to get a job working for John Douglas Kenney, a commercial and portrait photographer, who had worked with Irving Penn, in New York. Working for John I learned a lot, and had the luxury of lots of time to myself in the studio and darkroom, which was invaluable.
What inspired “Time Passages” and using long-exposure?
I had been working with the technique of long-exposure photography for about a year, trying different scenes and landscapes, even taking workshops to see if there was something more I could get out of the technique. For all of its spontaneity, photography involves a lot of planning, and I wanted to add the element of chance into the equation. Ultimately, I found my interest in the long-exposure technique waning, as I felt that there were several good photographers out there using the process, and the subject matter seemed limited (there are only so many old docks to shoot). It was on a ferry ride to Galiano Island that I realised I could use the long-exposure technique to both ‘capture time’, and insert the chance element I was looking for. By focusing on the actions of the boat – moving, changing course, speeding up and slowing down – I could capture an image of the feeling of being in these places. From then on I was a walk-on passenger on BC Ferries for over two years, Tsawwassen to Schwartz Bay, Duke Point to Tsawwassen, Horseshoe Bay to Langdale, Bowen Island, Nanaimo… then New York ‘Circle Line’ tours, and Istanbul commuter ferries, and London water taxis.
“Light and colour, like memory, are details often fuzzy”
The effects of long-exposure create a painterly feel, it is interesting how photography and painting then become mixed in your works. Was this your intention?
I wanted to create a painterly feel in the images – to use the camera as a paintbrush. I do not personally have the patience for painting, but I found I could create the simulacra of a painting using the camera and photography, but would never have to spend all that time cleaning brushes.
Thinking of a single image as film, can you expand on this concept?
Film – a movie – is a series of thousands of frames of stills, hundreds of feet and minutes long,that are then played back to give the clear impression of movement, or transition… and time. “An image as film”, is the opposite effect: a single frame that captures the movement of a thousand frames of stills. Not by superimposition, but supercompression. All that time in one frame.
In this sense, your works make time a tangible entity that the audience can see. Do you think this quality enhances the theme of loss and/or death in photography? Why?
I don’t see it as about loss or death, for me, it’s more about memory. The images in ‘Time Passages’ are literal – they are of a place, or location – but it is that feeling of being there that I think is most evocative. You don’t have to know exactly where an image was taken, but it brings you to that place in your mind… especially if you have been there before. The blurring and softening reduces the place down to its basics: Light and colour, like memory, are details often fuzzy.
What is the importance of water in your works? The majority of your works contain bodies of water, you are also travelling across bodies of water in order to document your work.
Growing up on Vancouver, water is just an integral part of the city, whether it’s the view of Burrard Inlet I had from my home in Burnaby Heights, or torrential rain. My apartment looks at Lost Lagoon, and my office looks out at Burrard Inlet and all the ships, moored and moving. I have been working on another project over the summer, photographing Vancouver’s parks, and you‘d be hard pressed not to find water nearby, or a stream, or pond. Water in Vancouver is omnipresent. Our commerce and much of our food and culture come from our relationship with the Pacific Ocean and the Fraser River. I grew up on the coast, and it has just become a part of who I am. I mean, I really love the desert too, but a desert near the ocean is even better.
Mountains by Wade Comer
What has been the your most memorable experience aboard a BC Ferry?
As dry as it sounds, I think it has been the interest people have in my camera. Using a 4×5 camera is not something most people are familiar with these days, so I get a lot of questions like, “Is that a video camera?”, or “Seen any whales?” I’ve shown people how the camera works, and described what I’m trying to do with the photos, and it has been interesting engaging with people ranging from island locals to tourists from around the world. I usually let them, or their child, look through the back of the camera to get an idea of how the camera works and how its just like your eye… except your brain does a lot of processing to turn the image back right side up. And no, I didn’t see one whale the whole time I was out there.
How does the theme of human impact on the environment and the contrast of urban existence with nature underlie the works in the series?
Many of my previous projects speak to the relationship between nature and humanity and our use of it. Projects like ‘Pyres’, where piles of flotsam from the Fraser River – remnants of BC’s logging resource industry – are piled up to await the wood chipper, represent a conversation about how we treat and interact with our world. ‘Carnage/Garages’ examines, in an abstract and literal way, our love of the car and how that has physically shaped and scarred our environment. ‘Time Passages’ is about the application of a technique, or process, and the insertion of chance. The concepts of memory and time compression came from within the work itself. If anything, “Time Passages” negates the effects we have made on our environment by blurring, or obscuring the clearcuts and highway overpasses, and by softening the hard shapes of buildings and cities. Ultimately, I have this Mark Rothko affinity, I like striations. I just wanted to create something visually appealing.
What’s your favourite “secret” spot in Vancouver?
It’s not really secret, but my living room window. I like the view. There are a couple of secret spots in Stanley Park… soon after the big wind storm in 2006, the Parks Board commissioned artists to make works out of the windfall in Stanley Park. There is a piece, now decomposed, that was off the South Creek Trail where an artist had created a ‘healing blanket’, out of medallions of a cedar tree limb, and sewed them together using cedar bark. It was placed over top of a stump of a very old tree; a beautiful piece. The other is on Squirrel Trail, where an artist has cut the fallen tree into sections, including a sphere out of cedar. The tree/void is a neat impression as you approach it from the top of the trail. On a more urban note, I like going to Iona Island and Sea Island, or roaming around Railtown and along the waterfront, underneath the Shaw tower and convention centre – lots of good urban waste and curious corners down there.
What’s next for Wade? Would you ever dabble in filmmaking? Painting?
I have several filmmaker friends and a few painter friends, and I think I’ll leave it all to them. I have dabbled, as many creative people do, but I keep coming back to photography. I have a few multimedia pieces and a large sculpture or two in my ideas book, but my next projects are kind of long-term, involving homage to Hokusai, and a series on Vancouver parks that has been a precursor to a larger project. I would also love to spend my days making money recycling beer cans I collect off the bottom of the ocean while living on a small Greek island.
For more by Comer, check out his website or visit his exhibition opening for “Time Passages” at Make Gallery on November 5th.
Cole Nowicki is, among other things, just some random guy standing in line with you at a coffee shop. What makes Nowicki different than all the other people waiting for their medium drip is that, supposing he sees you do something ridiculous or weird, he will write about you, and definitely publish it on the Internet.
Nowicki began creating his Portraits of Brief Encounters as a writing exercise, eventually making small drawings to accompany them. Along with his personal Instagram, which is the original site of POBE, SAD Mag has been featuring his work online since February of 2014. “They are all based in fact,” says Nowicki of his micro-nonfiction portraits,“they all have to have some sort of jump-off point: whether it’s an interaction with someone, or just an idea I’ve had. The story comes first and then [I create] the visual.”
In the portraits, Nowicki combines his love of writing with his comedic sensibility. The portraits can be simultaneously emotionally provocative and laugh-out-loud funny. His humourous, quotidian take on the human condition attracted the attention of Yashar Nijati, founder of thisopenspace. “[Nijati] commented on one of my Instagram portraits a couple years back, asking if I wanted to be friends,” recalls Nowicki. “Eventually we met up, and we talked about doing a show based on POBE.” The two developed a kind of gallery game in which a few local artists would take each of Nowicki’s stories and create an image based on one of them. Visitors to the gallery would have to match each image to the story it was inspired by, with the chance to win a discount on any of the pieces in the show.
The first show was a success, and so was Nowicki’s practice of creating the portraits. This lead thisopenspace to show his written portraits once again at the gallery, in game format, but this time paired with visuals created by eleven different Vancouver artists. “I like the collaborative aspect, I like seeing what pieces [the artists] pick out of the story and deem worthy to put their creative energy [into],” says Nowicki, who chose the artists (some of whom are friends) by scouring Instagram and artist listings he found in the online archives of Hot Art Wet City.
“If you come to the show,” says Nowicki, “it will be the most fun you have ever had in your life. And if you’re not already in love with someone, you will find someone that you will fall in love with…You’re not going to get your money back if it doesn’t happen, because it’s gonna happen.”
While Nowicki can’t guarantee that your newfound love will be requited, the show promises to be a great way to see a bunch of talented Vancouver under one roof. At the very least, it might make a good story.
Albert Maysles, famed documentarian and beloved cinematic friend to all, passed away earlier this year at the ripened age of eighty-eight. He, along with his brother David (1931 – 1987), sought out uncommon character and strange circumstance within their work, developing a myriad of delightful and rare documentaries that are still treasured today. I remember watching Grey Gardens for the first time and gazing up at the theatre screen in awe of the life I was witnessing, in all of its honest nonsense. Albert Maysles was the one to capture those moments, and since then I have been equally in awe of his sincerity with the camera.
This year, the Vancouver International Film Festival had the pleasure of screening one of Maysles’ last films, a work on which he collaborated with several other filmmakers (Lynn True, Nelson Walker, David Usui and Ben Wu). The film finds its subject in the Empire Builder, America’s most frequented long-distance train route, stretching from Chicago to Portland and Seattle, a journey which takes approximately three days. The camera’s role is observational, typical of a Maysles production, and it captures intimate conversation and solitude alike. Passengers on the train pour their hearts out into the lens, and we become witness to all manner of departure and arrival.
David and Albert Maysles. Photo: John Sotomayor
Unfortunately, I did not enjoy this film as much as I had wanted to. Though I found the train as subject to be fascinating, it was generally difficult to immerse myself in the stories of the people on board. The vision of the film was supposedly objective, but the moments captured by the camera were often cheesy and clichéd, which seems like a very cynical thing to say about actual lived experience, but I could not make myself feel differently. One woman revealed her struggle with being a single mom, another explained that the train was her break from an ex-husband, and a mother and daughter exchanged words about their dreams of arrival and feeling that the destination would be a new start.
Sometimes I felt as though these testimonies and exchanges were written especially for the camera and that their candid nature had been erased. If it had all been scripted, I would have cringed in my seat. What I would have liked to have experienced further was the thematic presence of the train as destination in itself, a kind of temporary space in which to ponder what came before and what will come next. Cinematic representations of trains are usually limited to the symbolic. They are used as devices to signify a character or narrative’s transformation, the start of something new or the leaving behind of old. With In Transit, the train became the definite location. Yes, it did symbolize coming and going, and held transformative qualities for some of its riders, but more so than that it became a real place. A self-contained habitat for all manner of folk passing through. I guessed that perhaps the characters aboard the train were intended to be the humanity of the film, but I wanted to explore that of the train instead. I was intrigued by its omniscient personality and acceptance of those who travelled along its route, and by the pattern of existence which only the train could produce. Oh, well. I may have been underwhelmed, but Albert still holds an honoured place in my heart.
IDS West is the Pacific platform for all things design. From the IDS West website:
“During this annual event, occurring in September, Vancouver welcomes individual designers, artists, makers and design-centric brands to showcase their current works, concepts and products. In addition to experiencing installations and features, there were opportunities to hear from some of the design world’s most notable and talented personalities and to connect with a long list of world-class designers that either call Vancouver home, or call on Vancouver for inspiration.
“The Pacific Northwest has experienced a major designboom that has been especially embraced in Vancouver, where the design community has become vast and mighty. Now in its eleventh year, IDS West has had the utmost privilege of seeing it grow, supporting its members and championing it the world over. Below is a recap of some event highlights.”
Hinterland Design’s booth stood out for it’s nature-inspired style, dramatic lighting, and bright wall colour.
A crowd favourite, the Tidal Flux ottoman by Hinterland Design is a whimsical interpretation of crab traps.
The L.A. Exchange booth, curated by Design Milk, brought some to star designers from Southern California to Vancouver.
The colourful geometric offerings from Bendgoods at the L.A. Exchange booth.
The show was replete with high end style and luxurious materials. A great place for guests to find inspiration for their own homes.
Open Studio invited a selected group of designers to participate in a curated installation that entertains the theme of Workspace, providing each participant with 10′ x 10’ of raw space as a blank canvas. Below is a selection of the beautiful work that were on display. Alda Pereira Designs’ workspace is reminiscent of the International style movement, playing with clean lines, simple shapes and primary colours.
This statue was damaged during the IDSWest opening party. Poor guy.
Interior designer, Gaile Guevara, brings together a collective of makers and artisans to represent her workspace as a culmination of the community and relationships that are integral to her work.
A chic yet relaxed workspace by Gillian Segal Design.
Marie Joy Designs created a workspace inspired by Our Little Flower Company.
Jonathan Adler draws a full crowd for his talk on design, branding, his philosophy of “irreverant luxury” and his progression in the industry from a pottery teacher in New York to becoming the founder of one of the world’s most sought-after lifestyle brands.
Canadian and international designers present one-off and custom lighting, glass, ceramics, textiles and surface design in a gallery-like setting in the Studio North presentation area.
The Portland Design Exchange featured designers and makers from it’s region.
Port + Quarter set up a cozy firepit for anyone looking to sit down and relax. Sadly, marshmallows not included.
Barter Co.’s line-up combines practicality with modern forms and fine natural textures.
A stately Dinner x Design set by 212 Design Inc. is inspired by the book 50 shades of Grey and features a show-stopping pendant light fixture.
This Dinner x Design set by Live Edge Design recalls our inner child with a beautiful tablescape under the treehouse.
Medina Design House was inspired by Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi for a “night of enchanted opulence”. Guests were mesmerized by the built-in pond and water fountain in the middle of the table.
Find more of Robert’s work here, and check out the IDS West website here.
Cole Nowicki is, among other things, just some random guy standing in line with you at a coffee shop. What makes Nowicki different than all the other people waiting for their medium drip is that, supposing he sees you do something ridiculous or weird, he will write about you, and definitely publish it on the Internet.
